Have you read Dava Sobel's Longitude?

This also goes a long way toward explaining this country's deceivingly high murder statistics.  The vast majority of our gun-nutty country is just as safe as any Eutopian gun-free zone.

This is a good illustration of how we generally fail to understand the power law distribution (related to the 80-20 rule).

In the ubiquitous Gaussian/normal distribution (bell curve), the average is also the most common value.

However, when you have a Pareto/power law distribution -- where there are a few cities with a very large number of murders, and a large number of cities with few murders -- a linear average like "murders per capita" tends not to represent any city well:

Gaussian and Paretian distributions differ radically.  The main feature of the Gaussian distribution . . . can be entirely characterized by its mean and variance . . . A Paretian distribution does not show a well-behaved mean or variance.  A power law, therefore, has no average that can be assumed to represent the typical features of the distribution ...

In other words, the few very large values pull the mean well above the vast majority of places, giving the impression that the whole country is far more dangerous than reality.

Would you admit experiments that have proved the speed of light is not subject to Galilean transformations?  The only alternative would be that it's constant, right?

xkcd comes through with a timely cartoon:

...which is?  You've given a list of characteristics that time lacks, but have not provided a definition.

Two of the most important features (discoveries?) of relativity are that the speed of light is constant and that, therefore, our understanding of time was not quite correct.  I don't see why this is so objectionable. 

By way of analogy, our understanding of color changed once we discovered it was a sensory phenomenon related to the wavelengths of light.  The color of light is not inherent and fixed, but changes as a function of the source's relative speed.  Why don't you object to that as well, to say the definition of color is what it always has been, and what Doppler was talking about is some concept related to "color" but is not truly color?

I think Tim H. has given you quite a good set of answers and challenged you on the substance (far better than I could), and I have nothing to add to it.

I'm not claiming expertise since I just use Newton for 99.9% of my own work.  But I'm not illiterate and I don't just accept this stuff out of some deference to authority. 

What is your definition of time?

I'm not here to play the victim, but this is actually quite an insult, and a presumptive one at that.  Are you saying anyone who doesn't come to the same conclusion as you has done "no reflection at all" and is guilty of "yield[ing] to authority ... rather than think this stuff through"?

Come on.

Pun intended? 

Seriously, do you think a lawsuit or series of lawsuits would help this issue?

What is this, a statement of faith?  I'm not detecting a basis of argumentation in your posts, Larry.  You're combining an argumentum ad lapidem with an argumentum ad antiquitatem without providing any evidence for your position.

I think it's weird to see the term "northern tip" applied to South Dakota, a rectangular state with a perfectly horizontal northern border.

Larry, what are your thoughts about gravitational lensing, and Gravity Probe B?

Do you also reject the constancy of the speed of light?

Define "real".  =)

Fair point about Wellington.  I suppose in the abstract we tend to imagine these virtues and vices in isolation, which is what I pictured when reading your post: an otherwise normal human with a conspicuous lack of sexual morality.  But humans are complex and multidimensional creatures, and there are so many different virtues and vices that you're almost always bound to get a mixture of the laudable and the regrettable.

Still, your post seems to call for the outright dismissal and disregard of personal/familial/sexual immorality.  I stand by my first comment that these serve as a useful indicator of character, but I'll grant that you have to consider the whole person whereas we conservatives tend to overemphasize this one area.

Nor are they in conflict. You seem to imply a virtuous and wise president would be like Carter.  What about men like George Washington, John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush.  Correct me if these men have some marital indiscretions I'm unaware of.

It's not about marital fidelity per se, it's about character -- an indication that the person means what he says, follows through on a promise, is not rash or subject to moments of compromised judgment, is not vulnerable to blackmail, is loyal to the people who have a right to his loyalty, and can keep his priorities in order.  These are all traits we should require in our representatives.

What the industry practices now: delayviation.